SOURCEBOOK

Get your copy of the first ever Digital Experience Sourcebook from EContent, which is packed with information about the past, present, and future of all the topics that matter to digital content professionals.

The conflict between publishers and search engines heated up once again when disgruntled publishers put Europe's media commissioner, Viviane Reding, on notice last month. Publishers from across the continent got organized and signed the "Hamburg Declaration Regarding Intellectual Property Rights" at a meeting of the European Publishers' Council and the World Association of Newspapers on June 26. This is just the latest in a string of complaints from publishers about search engines making money off the work of others. However, it has once again brought up the all-important question: How do publishers get their web content in front of readers without losing out on monetizing opportunities?

Microsoft Corp. announced that Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010, and Microsoft Project 2010 have reached the technical preview stage, and tens of thousands of people are being invited to test Office and Visio as part of the program.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a partial response to the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA currently focuses on four research categories: aeronautics, exploration systems, science, and space operations. Recently celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2008, NASA continues to be a leader in scientific research, declaring its mission "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research."

Whether it's the Seattle Post-Intelligencer giving up the printed ghost and going all-digital or the Rocky Mountain News going out of business, the world of journalism has been in a constant state of flux lately. As media giants such as News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch reconsider the possibility of making users pay for content, there are emerging solution providers, such as Journalism Online, LLC, that hope to make the task of monetizing content easier for content providers and consumers alike.

Many mainstream media outlets are reducing their staff journalists. At the same time, many organizations finally understand the value of "brand journalism," creating interesting information online that serves to educate and inform consumers. This convergence has opened up an entire new world for aspiring journalists to consider.

To succeed today, content sites must amass huge content collections, yet accomplish this with tighter budgets. At the same time, content consumers need to be enabled to find exactly what meets their needs. There are several strategies that can be employed to achieve web publishing's Holy Grail: the Triangle of Content Success.

Between spending huge amounts of money on books—only to have them bought back for a fraction of the price—and lugging behemoth texts all over campus, the relationship between coeds and their textbooks is strained at best. So it makes sense that with another school year coming to a close, professors and students alike are looking for alternatives and opting to download etextbooks rather than cracking a printed one. With new social networking features designed specifically for the classroom, companies such as VitalSource are taking things one step further and are combining the interactivity of Web 2.0 with text. In the process of doing so, VitalSource managed to triple user numbers since June 2008, suggesting that etextbooks are becoming the latest learning tool in an academic's arsenal.

Nstein Technologies Inc., a provider of digital publishing solutions for newspapers, magazines, and online content providers, announced the launch of WCM 4.1, an upgrade to its content management system (CMS).

In 1885, when The Dallas Morning News first started covering the area in and around Dallas, it had a circulation of 5,000. Published by A.H. Belo, a Texas-based publisher, The Dallas Morning News now covers 65 communities in the Dallas area and has a circulation of more than half a million. Not to be left out of the internet loop, it created its web counterpart, www.dallasnews.com, which now logs more than a million views a day, and neighborsgo.com, a social networking site that focuses on community-generated news.

Amid wall-to-wall news coverage about banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and other pillars of the American economy that are buckling under the oppressive weight of the global financial crisis, the fact that the print media outlets reporting that news are themselves on the verge of financial ruin may be lost on readers.